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tekgoblin writes "Today Skype has released an update that allows iPhone users to make video calls from their device. There had been rumors that this update was in the works and now they have been made fact. So, was the Skype outage the other day part of this internal update? Possibly. But Skype has proven to be one of the most important communication tools in the world and now has gotten even better."

> So, was the Skype outage the other day part of this internal update?
If you read the story that's two below this one, you'll have realised that this wasn't the case.
Shame the editors of Slashdot can't be bothered to read their own site these days - whilst the video calling is news, the submission could have been edited.
---P

No. I read your comment four times and thought "What's he going on about?" and thought you were crazy. Then as I was tabbing over I realized you didn't say "spam." I guess we all read what we want. Err.. yes, the answer is yes.

The bigger question is, how long until video calling comes to Skype on Android? There are many more Android devices out there with forward facing cameras, so video Skype for Android would be a big bump for Skype. They dragged their heels heavily bringing Skype to the Samsung Galaxy S, which is the best Android device and highest selling one to date, which to me indicates that they don't know which side their bread is buttered on.

Before they get video chats to Skype on Android, it would be nice if they made it work on 3G (rather than WiFi) at all in U.S. As it is it's artificially limited due to their exclusive agreement with Verizon.

It has everything to do with Skype because they signed an agreement with Verizon. Yes, I know it's not worldwide. It's still annoying as hell. I used the ability all the time in Canada, and it was very convenient.

The bigger question is, how long until video calling comes to Skype on Android? There are many more Android devices out there with forward facing cameras, so video Skype for Android would be a big bump for Skype. They dragged their heels heavily bringing Skype to the Samsung Galaxy S, which is the best Android device and highest selling one to date, which to me indicates that they don't know which side their bread is buttered on.

iOS is still the dominant app phone platform. It's absolutely no surprise that this feature is enabled for iOS before being rolled out for Android.

I don't understand your last sentence. Is/was Skype for Android available, but for only some handsets? If we are to break it down to individual devices, then iOS is even more the obvious choice for primary development.

This is really old news, surprised you didn't know. Here [engadget.com] is one source. What more, for a long time you could only install Skype on Android if you were using Verizon - it wouldn't show up in the market for any other operator. When they finally made a "public" version, it is WiFi-only in US.

End eventually with similar functionality as Skypes when it comes to passing firewalls or what not + encryption (I know there exist encryption for it, and yeah, "somewhat" video to. But it doesn't help if it doesn't work =P)

Oh, and voice over jabber to of course, unless there are SIP as well. I don't care _what_ is used as long as it work and the standard

Hell, they can't do audio over bluetooth yet on the iPhone. So when I'm listening to music wirelessly, Skype will ring in my headset, then I have to dig the phone out of my pocket and talk directly into the phone.

And, bizarrely, when initiating a video call, you have the option to turn off 'speakerphone' mode, so you can show the person a closeup of your head while you talk to them. Alternately, you can show them what your ear is looking at.

No, HTC is Taiwanese. And before you go attacking Taiwanese companies, you should probably realize that if you have a smartphone or a computer of any kind, it's probably a Taiwanese-produced product or contains a lot of Taiwanese components. That's true even for most of Apple's products.

Same difference. Taiwan is officially the "Republic of China" and is 98% Han Chinese by ethinicity and they identify with their mainland roots more than as some sort of distinct ethnic group. Besides, Taiwan is just a name foisted on the country by the Dutch.

I read about the Skype outage just today and all 5 installations I own were the problematic version because I wanted the 3+ video conference which I imagine was very popular over the holiday season especially for families living around the world. I have now updated them all of course but the outage was the mistake of Skype and their misdirection to point at users was clearly silly, saying ok sorry we dropped the ball would have been more accurate as having such a serious problem while pretending it was the

Considering I haven't seen it (as evidenced in my comment), I don't think it's too much of a silly assumption. It's how Skype for PC handles low-bandwidth connections (scaling down quality rather than framerate, hence pixelation and artifacts). But, it's a joke, so I don't mind if it looks silly.:)

More than 6 months ago, N900 had skype video support since a year ago, November 2009 when the mobile device became widely available. Also front cam quality is much improved if you have proper lighting. For instance, in the sun! or at least a bright room.

It's just you. The Knocking app on our phones has brought loads and loads of joy to my parents, as they're able to watch their 11 month old granddaughter play with her Christmas presents from 1500 miles away... Having the option for two-way communication with it would only be better.

Another one who actually uses it. My parents, who are old and infirm, live far away, and I have had to travel quite a bit, making communications difficult....with this, we can communicate far more often and with far more gestures than previously available. Ekiga is nice but they're not technical, and they don't have iPhone 4 devices with which to use FaceTime.

It's a start. Eventually, open standards, better tech, etc, will come - but the perfect is the enemy of the good enough, and for now this is good e

I downloaded it and began using it this morning. While I don't have to hold the phone an uncomfortable distance from my face in order to use the video chat feature, all I get is a talking head at the normal arm length. However, because previously we only had one computer with a video camera to do video chat and it was stationary and only available at home it was a bit of a pain in the ass to do BabyGrandparent chats due to scheduling conflicts. Thankfully now those scheduling conflicts are reduced and Grand

No, it's not just you. I don't know anyone who has ever made a video call from a mobile phone. It's impractical and a load of hassle. If you want a video link, sit down in front of a web cam or something. Holding a mobile device up in front of you for the duration of the conversation is just lame.

I totally agree, cell phone video calling is way overrated. My previous phone (which I acquired in mid 2007) supported video calls, but the carrier network didn't allow it to work. I only wanted to use it just for the novelty factor, and didn't "wish it worked" any other time in the following year and a half I used that phone.

I barely even record videos with my phone, and when I do it is even less often that they get sent to someone right away via MMS (much less havin

Don't move the goal posts. We're talking about video chatting, not recording video. If I wanted to record video, obviously I would use a video camera. (Except my phone's quality isn't much worse, and posts to Youtube significantly more easily...)

You know, I just remembered an even better example. My Grandfather was in a hospital about three hours away from his home recovering from a brain injury a few months ago. My parents were there visiting him, and were telling him that his great-granddaughter had started walking. He became sad that he had missed such a milestone, being 1500 miles away and in a coma at the time. My Mom just pulled out her iPhone, called me up, and within minutes he was able to watch her walking and talk to her in real-time. You

Consider: something that just a few short years ago was only possible with a news van and a satellite dish is now in the hands of millions. (okay, maybe Skype installations on iPhones is 2,000,000, but it's gotta be pretty close, right?)

You've never wished you could have someone you're helping just show you their computer screen instead of trying to incorrectly describe it (or god forbid trying to walk them through setting up a remote connection)? A shot of the broken faucet they're bothering you about? It would cut a large part of the guesswork out of my random tech calls. Anyone who's a go-to technical person should see the value in the video chat cell phone form factor. Picture text messages work too, but the interactive nature of video

That's great, but FaceTime still relies on a central server to resolve phone names or email addresses to SIP URIs. So in practice the only thing more open about Facetime vs. Skype is that anyone can make a 3rd-party client for Facetime without needing any proprietary codecs. All calls just have to go through Apple.

FaceTime is also built-in into all the new iPhones and iPod touches, will be in the next iPad and there's also a beta version for Mac OS X, not to mention rumors of FaceTime for Windows. Is the userbase of FaceTime already bigger than Skype?

I downloaded it this morning on my iPhone 4. Although it works, I am experiencing that sound and video are out of sync, low framerates, and pixelated video. Lousy job Skype. I tried it on both wifi and 3g connections with the other party being on a desktop connected via a broadband land line. I would have rather waited another 2 weeks for a more polished version that would be of the same quality as desktop-to-desktop video Skype.

2 weeks? What exactly do you think happens in 2 weeks of software development? Or are you just throwing out a number that is the limit of your attention span and fits with your feeling of entitlement to instant gratification from a free application?

[rant] Rumour has it that Skype might also get their fingers out their backside and make a more up to date version of Skype for Linux, one that is at least nicer looking with KDE4 for example, or one that actually obeys PulseAudio, one that does video calls properly with up to date video for Linux system, or one that stops deleting old conversations even though you've told it not to. But maybe we'll have to wait another two years for such an "update", while everyone else in the known universe gets their stuff constantly updated.

Being the red headed step child of cross platform Windows software as an OS X user, I can only imagine how bad it is on Linux in these situations. Some of the ports to OS X have been laughably shocking (Flash, EvE Online, the first official MSN Messenger client, early Ventrillo releases).

Surprisingly, the OS X Skype client is ok (as is the Silverlight player - who'd have thought it?!).

I'll give you 8/10 on the Silverlight player. It used to work pretty well, but ever since the latest update, it's all Crashy Crasherson. The only thing I ever use it for is Hulu, and if Hulu ever comes to AppleTV, I will once again live and work in a Microsoft-free ecosystem.

Several people already posted hypothesizing that Apple would pull the App, but I don't think that is even in the realm of possibility. Rather, this may prompt Apple to get off their butts and release the FaceTime specs as an open standard as they previously promised. Hopefully they'll roll out some improvements first, like default encryption on all channels, but it sure would be nice to have an open competitor to Skype that can interact with iPhones.

The only issue I have with it is that the front facing camera displays the image digitally zoomed or closer than how your face appears using either FaceTime or the built in camera application or a number of apps that call to the camera. I'm guessing Skype built their own way of A/V and couldn't rely on Apple's implementation within their own app.

This is what FaceTime should have been and it one ups Yahoo Messengers half assed implementation because it works between with Windows, Mac, and other iOS client